Newly elected barangay captain killed in Tacloban

Injured Killed
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Date: 08 November 2010
Source: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/cebudailynews/visayas/view/20101110-302430/Newly-elected-barangay-captain-killed-in-Tacloban

TACLOBAN CITY — A lone gunman shot dead a newly elected barangay chairman and wounded another person in this city’s barangay 66 on Monday night. 

Senior Insp. Ma. Bella Rentuaya, police and community relations officer of the Tacloban police office, identified the victim as Aldrin Benitez, 40, who was just elected chairman of barangay 66 in Paseo del Legazpi district. Benitez sustained multiple gunshot wounds, Rentuaya said yesterday. 

A househelp of Benitez, 21-year-old Julio Sabanal, was hit on the right ankle, he added. 

Rentuaya said Benitez and Sabanal were sitting outside the barangay hall when a motorcycle stopped in front of them and one of the two riders shot Benitez several times. 

Police recovered seven empty shells of a still undetermined gun from the scene. 

The wife of the victim, Sylvia, has asked the authorities to speed up their investigation of the killing of her husband of more than 20 years. 

“Honestly, I don’t have any idea why he was killed,” the 38-year old widow, a teacher, said at the Saint Peter’s Funeral Home. 

The victim served as a barangay councilor for nine years before he decided to run for barangay chairman in last month’s barangay and youth council elections. 

Meanwhile, Rentuaya said they were not discounting the possibility that politics was behind the killing. 

Benitez was the first barangay official in the city to have been killed, according to Anastacio Ibañez, community affairs officer of the local office of the Department of Interior and Local Government. 

“Of course, we’re bothered by this incident. Just like his family, we hope that justice will be served,” Ibañez said. /INQUIRER